In our last blog we told you about our amazing Yuba Mundo cargobikes with the powerful Bafang e-assist system we installed on them. That has been an amazing experiment and those bikes will be available for our community to try out in the coming spring. We also promised you more news and so here we are again…
 
So what’s this about VBike getting spicy?  Actually, it was a stroke of luck that we won’t go into here, but suffice it to say that a couple months ago VBike landed the fabulous Yuba Spicy Curry to add to our colorful fleet. We were so excited riding it around that we forgot to let y’all know. Now it’s time to catch up!
 
As we reported in our April blog post, Yuba Bikes released their Spicy Curry back in July to essentially raise the bar on cargobike design, technology and function to bring it to a whole new level. And as a key VBike industry sponsor, we are incredibly proud to be associated with a company like Yuba who has understood the VBike mission from the get-go. This is a bike that can perfectly fit the family and is highly adaptable for commercial purposes, too.  Its powerful assist and great selection of components make it a Vermont ready e-cargobike.
 
But what is so important here is that the Spicy Curry represents the clear understanding that bikes can be more than just recreation or mere toys – they can be serious part of our transportation mix and radical fun, to boot. While we as a culture are taking our own sweet precious time grasping the point that that climate change is for real and that we actually have to do something, it’s really refreshing to see companies that are thinking outside of the box. It will be so easy for us to just go for the everything-stays-the-same approach of reinventing the automobile (electric cars, self-driving cars etc) and somehow believing that we solved a problem – we just keep the same old infrastructure, unsafe streets for walkers and cyclists, social isolation, increasingly robotic landscape, disconnection from the real world, and disengagement from our bodies. Developments like the Spicy Curry represent a different and needed way of thinking and experiencing the world that also has the potential to change the way that we live and how we plan our cities and towns. But more on that in another blog…

The Spicy Curry name plays on the fact that Yuba developed this bike in collaboration with Currie Technologies, a company that designs and sells electric-assist systems and has its own line of e-bikes. (Yuba likes playful names; one key feature of all their bikes is the “deflopilator”, a little spring doodad that stabilizes the front wheel when the bike is parked.) The Spicy, as it is affectionately called, features Currie’s Centerdrive motor, a 48 volt battery mounted low on the bike’s lightweight aluminum frame, adaptability as a kid hauler or cargo trucker, and great handling for the tough road conditions we have here in Vermont. It also has 4 different levels of assist that you control and that kick in once you start riding.  The Spicy Curry also features a real nice display that tells you your speed, range, distance and e-assist level. One of the coolest features is a stellar lighting system (front and back) that turns on automatically when it gets dark, which just seems to happen every night.  Not only is the light feature cool, but it’s exactly the way things should be!

Our experience riding the Spicy Curry has been nothing short of a dream.  This bike can climb virtually any hill, even with a couple of children on board and all their stuff (in the optional front basket we installed on ours).  It’s certainly different from our Yuba Mundos in that the Spicy was designed ground up as an electric cargo bike – the frame was specifically designed around the Currie assist system.  The Spicy Curry also has a 20 inch rear wheel, which compared to the Mundo’s  26 inch rear wheel provides some noticeable benefits.  A smaller back wheel offers more stability by creating a lower center of gravity and this therefore gives Spicy has superior handling. Also, the smaller the diameter of a wheel the stronger it is. One downside is that adult passengers have less legroom on the Spicy. There is always give and take with these designs.
 
Another great feature on the Spicy is the optional cargo rack that can be mounted on the rear of the frame. This provides for a huge platform for hauling cargo or for installing a large cargo container. The bike can haul stuff!  But the Spicy Curry isn’t the only kid on the block.  Xtracycle also released their 10E Edgerunner model around the same time as the Spicy - these two companies are going head to head. THe 10E features a Bosch mid-drive motor and the 10E has many of the same features as the Spicy Curry. Both are great examples of where the bike world is heading, especially for families and super especially for families in hilly places.

VBike proudly showcased the Spicy Curry at our Electric Vehicle Demo event we helped to organize in Brattleboro this October and we just brought it up to the Vermont Energy & Climate Action Network (VECAN) conference in Fairlee, VT, where we also presented. We’re also exploring a pilot project with the Brattleboro Coop to run a once a week delivery service for folks unable to do their own shopping. In addition to all this, VTrans and other Vermont agencies have been exploring the idea of contracting with VBike to provide presentations, workshops and even loan a bike for a week or so. The Spicy Curry will be surely a big hit for both of these projects. And as mentioned before, all our bikes will be available in the spring for our Take it Home project, to give families a great opportunity to try one of these bikes out in their daily rounds.

Finally, some of you may be asking how much this thing costs. Now, when we tell folks that to fully outfit this bike you might be looking at $5000, folks just gasp. Often people say that is way too much for a “bike” and dismiss the whole thing out of hand. The way we see it, we’ve been nicely trained by the bike industry and by the transportation monoculture we have inherited to see the bike as essentially a toy and that paying this much for a toy would be silly.  Never mind that many folks buy recreational bikes for nearly this amount that barely have the capacity to carry even a loaf of bread (the Spicy can haul upwards of 450 lbs.)
 
It’s important to note that the Spicy Curry is really one of the first dedicated e-cargobikes on the market and that was designed as such.  Prices will start coming down as the technologies and cargobike designs become more standardized, sort of like what happen to automobiles in their inception. And with the VSECU low-interest bike loans that we helped to bring to Vermont, the Spicy Curry could cost as little as $42 a month, depending on the terms you choose. And even more to the point, VBike is always exploring low-cost, entry-level options for folks on a budget and really desiring of shift up to a car-free or car-lite lifestyle.  We’re particularly interested in the coming Xtracycle Leap that is due to arrive early 2016. The Leap is a conversion kit that can change almost any bike into a longtail cargobike on the cheap.  We’ll be reporting on that in the coming months…
 
In the meantime, there is no better time than now to be thinking outside of the box, whether that’s shifting up to car-lite lifestyles or doing the myriad of things that have to be done right now. If not now, then when?
 
"At this critical hour, any dream worth its salt ought to seem impossible to the mainstream elements of our own minds."  ~  Bill Plotkin

Bafang is a Chinese company that has produced some very reliable hub motors (e-assist motors that are integrated on a front or rear wheel). About 3 years ago they introduced the first truly affordable mid-drive motor that that can be installed on virtually any bike.  Mid-drives are super efficient because they can utilize your rear gears by driving your chainwheel (the gear your pedals and cranks are attached to). And because it uses the gears, the motor doesn’t have to work as hard (as long as you are correctly shifting your bike). You get more out of your battery and can go further.

Another big advantage or mid-drives is that your wheels are not taken over by a motor with a bunch of electronics, so changing a flat or switching out tires is simplified. The one downside of a system like this is that you can only have one chainwheel up front so you are limited to the rear freewheel or cassette for your gearing. However, if the gearing is set up well (like we have done on our Mundos), going with 7 or so speeds totally works fine.

As we have been testing these two bikes out, we’ve found the combo of the Bafang and the Mundo to be an excellent match. We’ve set the Bafang unit to have 5 levels of assist (this thing is programmable) and good use of the thumb throttle for extra power.  The assist kicks in as soon as you start pedaling and with the really nice large button controls you can easily power down or power up.  It feels pretty natural once you get the hang of it.  The throttle is real handy for starting on hills (especially if you have kids on board) or for just getting the extra juice when you need to take the road. The Bafang and Mundo work great together and having just 7 gears to contend with makes things simpler. We upgraded our Mundos with Shimano Megarange freewheels so that we can gear down when riding the hills (we have plenty of those in this state!).  We’ve also added on a side view mirror and some great, puncture proof Schwalbe tires.

We feel that these bikes and the whole of the VBike fleet are going to be a revelation for Vermont families looking to shift up towards a car-lite lifestyle and to bring more fun, outdoors and ecological responsibility into their daily lives.  We’re looking to upgrade the bikes with disc brakes, a bright lighting system, and some extras.  These and other bikes will be available in the spring as part of our Take it Home program (we’ll be telling you more about that in a couple of blogs posts) to give Brattleboro-area families a great chance to try one of these out in their daily rounds.
 
Having these bikes be the best they can be for the spring is part of our reason for our December fundraising drive. Many of you are looking to Climate Change Conference happening right now in Paris and hoping that there is something we can do to slow down the carbon pollution and bring about an ecological cultural revolution. We at VBike believe that we can do a lot right here at home to bring creativity and take on the responsibility for the changes we need to make now.